Place Cell
Place cells are neurons in the hippocampus that exhibit a high rate of firing whenever an animal is in a specific location in an environment corresponding to the cell's "place field". These neurons are distinct from other neurons with spatial firing properties, such as grid cells, border cells, head direction cells, and spatial view cells. In the CA1 and CA3 hippocampal subfields, place cells are believed to be pyramidal cells, while those in the dentate gyrus are believed to be granule cells.
Place cells were first described in rats by O'Keefe and Dostrovsky. Based on this discovery, O'Keefe and Nadel hypothesized that the primary function of the rat hippocampus is to form a cognitive map of the rat's environment. Ekstrom and colleagues have found cells with similar properties in the human hippocampus, using extracellular recordings from epilepsy patients undergoing invasive monitoring of their brain activity.
Read more about Place Cell: Place Fields, Phase Precession
Famous quotes containing the words place and/or cell:
“Shopping seemed to take an entirely too important place in women’s lives. You never saw men milling around in men’s departments. They made quick work of it. I used to wonder if shopping was a form of escape for women who had no worthwhile interests.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“It is plain that there is no separate essence called courage, no cup or cell in the brain, no vessel in the heart containing drops or atoms that make or give this virtue; but it is the right or healthy state of every man, when he is free to do that which is constitutional to him to do.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)